Anthony Tucker-Jones, Tank Battles of the Cold War (Pen & Sword, 2021)
Anthony Tucker-Jones observes in his introduction that while many might think tank warfare ended with World War II, the plethora of tank on tank operations from 1946 to 1991 suggests otherwise. This is partly because of a second misunderstanding, that the Cold War applied outside of Europe; it didn’t: wars have scarred the globe from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. In Tank Battles of the Cold War Tucker-Jones surveys where the action was hottest, then reaches a surprising conclusion that should concern modern tank proponents.
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Tucker-Jones covers tank combat in chronological order, beginning in Indo-China, 1946-1954, where the French mistakenly believed they could batter the Viet Minh into submission and took half a dozen tank regiments with them to do the job. They failed, illustrating the fact that tanks do not work in all environments. We then move into proper tank battles with the Arab-Israeli wars, the first of which started in 1948, the second in 1967, and third, the Yom Kippur War, in 1973. The Korean War, 1950-1953, also saw conventional tank warfare. Tucker-Jones goes back into the jungles of Vietnam to assess US and ARVN tank warfare efforts, which did not prove particularly successful, though the NVA managed better towards the end of the war. After a short trip to Suez, 1956, and back to Vietnam, Tucker-Jones lands in the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971. This was not the first time these neighbours had fought with tanks, but this war featured the largest tank battle in the theatre. Another lesser known tank war was the Ethiopian Civil War, 1974-1991, while elsewhere in Africa, in Angola from 1975 to 2002, and the Chadian-Libyan War of 1978-1987, tanks were also deployed – in the latter example, Toyota trucks did more damage than Libyan tanks! If Africa proved difficult terrain for tanks, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan proved almost impossible. More fruitful ground for tanks was the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988, though this proved mostly attritional through lack of tactical and strategic ability. The 1990s saw tank warfare in the Gulf War and in the former Yugoslavia. Tucker-Jones concludes with chapters on Soviet tank exports during the Cold War and his argument that by 1991, the age of tanks was over because they were too vulnerable. He also pays homage to the T-54/55 as the most ubiquitous tank of the Cold War. His appendices cover Cold War armoured units, Chinese and Soviet tracked armour, and Soviet anti-tank weapons.
Taken at face value, Tank Battles of the Cold War consists of well-worn narratives, but they are told from the tank warfare perspective, which adds an interesting layer to some of these conflicts where tanks were not the main weapon. Moreover, as you work your way through Tucker-Jones’s well-written and engaging text, you can trace the development of the main tanks used in the various wars. Tucker-Jones doesn’t get bogged down in the technical minutiae of tanks, which is good for the non-specialist, but he clearly knows his material. That makes his conclusion, that the age of the tank is over, all the more surprising and controversial. This book, then, is a notable introduction to tanks in the Cold War for various reasons and highly recommended.
